ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 19 
Among these was the cclebrated Chinese Yam (Dios- 
corea bataias) and the Iloleus saccharatus, under the 
name of “ The Sugar Cane of the North of China.” 
THE APPEARANCE OF MR. WRAY’S IMPHEE, 
Curiously enough, there was received in France at 
about the same time a quantity of seeds of a plant 
having apparently the same properties and almost the 
same appearance as the sorgho, which had been dis- 
covered on the south east coast of Africa, in the 
country of the Zulu Kaffirs, by Mr. Leonard Wray. The 
lucid, but truly surprising statements made concerning its 
virtues by this latter gentleman, at once stimulated ina 
most lively manner investigations into the properties 
of the Chinese Sugar Cane, and upon comparing the 
plants derived from these widely separate sources, the 
remarkable fact was made apparent, that in ability to 
yield crystallized sugar, to afford nourishment for stock, 
and in the requirements of cultivation, and other pecu- 
harities, they were almost identical, and much surprise 
was created that from this double source, and as if cor- 
roborative the one of the other, a greatly needed sugar 
plant, and one apparently of high value, should have 
been given to French agriculture. 
THLE PRECARIOUS POSITION OF THE SORGHO. 
It is a curious instance of how upon the slightest 
thread depend most momentous results, when we con- 
sider that, of the package of seeds sent by the Count 
